Bluetooth is an open specification for a radio system that provides the network infrastructure to enable short range wireless

communication of data and voice. It comprises of a hardware component and a software component. The specification also describes usage models and user profi les for these models. Bluetooth is named after the Danish King Harald Blaatand. This article give s you an overview of the Protocol architecture. WHAT IS BLUETOOTH? luetooth is an open specification for a radio system that provides the network infrastructure to enable short range wireless communication of data and voice. It comprises of a hardware component and a software component. The specification also describes usage models and user profiles for these models. Bluetooth is named after the Danish King Harald Blaatand "Bluetooth", who successfully united Denmark and Norway during his rule from 940 to 985 AD. B Bluetooth unleashes the concept of "hidden computing" by providing radio devices "unconscious" connectivity without the user's proactive intervention. It provides a bearer service for wireless (WAP) applications. BLUETOOTH CHARACTERISTICS Bluetooth radios operate in the unlicensed ISM band at 2.4 Gigahertz using 79 channels between 2.402 GHz to 2.480 GHz (23 channels in some countries). The range for bluetooth communication is 0-30 feet (10 meters) with a power consumption of 0dBm (1mW). This distance can be increased to 100 meters by amplifying the power to 20dBm. The bluetooth radio system is optimized for mobility. Bluetooth supports two kinds of links: Asynchronous Connectionless (ACL) links for data transmission and Synchronous Connection oriented (SCO) links for audio/voice transmission. The gross bluetooth data rate is 1 Mbps while the maximum effective rate on an asymmetric ACL link is 721 Kbps in either direction and 57.6 Kbps in the return direction. A symmetric ACL link allows data rates of 432.6 Kbps. Bluetooth also supports up to three 64Kbps SCO channels per device. These channels are guaranteed bandwidth for transmission. BLUETOOTH ARCHITECTURE Bluetooth communication occurs between a master radio and a slave radio. Bluetooth radios are symmetric in that the same device may operate as a master and also the slave. Each radio has a 48 bit unique device address (BD_ADDR) that is fixed.

Two or more radio devices together form ad-hoc networks called piconets. All units within a piconet share the same channel. Each piconet has one master device and one or more slaves. There may be up to seven active slaves at a time within a piconet. Thus each active device within a piconet is identifiable by a 3 bit active device add ress. Inactive slaves in unconnected modes may continue to reside within the piconet. A master is the only one that may initiate a bluetooth communication link. However, once a link is established, the slave may request a master/slave switch to become the master. Slaves are not allowed to talk to each other directly. All communication occurs within the slave and the master. Slaves within a piconet must also synchronize their internal clocks and frequency hops with that of the master. Each piconet uses a different frequency hopping sequence. Radio devices used Time Division Multiplexing (TDM). A master device in a piconet transmits on even numbered slots and the slaves may transmit on odd numbered slots. Multiple piconets with overlapping coverage areas form a scatternet. Each piconet may have only one master, but slaves may participate in different piconets on a time-division mult iplex basis. A device may be a master in one piconet and a slave in another or a slave in more than one piconet.

THE PROTOCOL STACK The protocols of the bluetooth stack can be divided into four different categories: BLUETOOTH CORE PROTOCOLS BaseBand The baseband and the Link control layers enable the physical RF link between bluetooth devices to form a piconet. Both circuit and packet switching is used. They provide two kinds of physical links using the baseband packets. Synchronous connection oriented (SCO) and Asynchronous connectionless (ACL). ACL packets are used for data only, while the SCO packets may contain audio only or a combination of audio and data. The Link Manager Protocol The link manager protocol is responsible for the link setup between bluetooth units. This protocol layer caters to issues of security like authentication, encryption by generating, exchanging and checking the link and encryption keys. It also deals with control and negotiation of baseband pack et sizes.

Logical Link Control and Adaptation Layer (L2CAP) The bluetooth logical link control and adaptation layer supports higher level multiplexing, segmentation and reassembly of packets, and Quality of Service (QoS) communication and Groups. This layer does not provide any reliability and uses the baseband ARQ to ensure reliability. Channel identifiers are used to label each connection end point. Service Discovery Protocol (SDP) SDP is the basis for discovery of services on all bluetooth devices. This is essential for all bluetooth models. Using the SDP device information, services and the characteristics of the services can be queried and after that a connection between two or more bluetooth devices may be established. Other service discovery protocols such as Jini, UpnP etc. maybe used in conjunction with the bluetooth SDP protocol. RFCOMM The RFCOMM protocol is the basis for the cable replacement usage of bluetooth. It is a simple transport protocol with additional provisions for emulating the 9 circuits of RS-232 serial ports over L2CAP part of the bluetooth protocol stack. This is based in the ETSI standard TS 07.10 and supports a large base of legacy applications that use serial communication. It provides a reliable data stream, multiple concurrent connections, flow control and serial cable line settings. Telephony Control Protocol Specification (TCS Binary) The TCS binary protocol defines the call control signaling for the establishment of speech and data calls between bluetooth devices. It is based on the ITU-T Q.931 recommendation. It is a bit oriented protocol and also provides group management. The Host Controller Interface (HCI) The HCI provides a command interface to the base-band controller, link manager a nd access to the hardware status and control registers. The interface provides a uniform method of accessing the bluetooth baseband capabilities. The Host control transport layer abstracts away transport dependencies and provides a common device driver interface to various interfaces. Three interfaces are defined in the core specification: USB, RS-232, and UART.